India will auction 5G spectrum later this month. There is much debate about whether mobile players and space? broadband players can coexist in the mmWave frequency and whether the government should auction spectrum for satellite services. In an interaction with Mansi Taneja of ETTelecom, Christian GomezSenior Director – Government & Regulatory Affairs, Asia Pacific at viasat talk about global lessons on 5G mmWave bandcoexistence and other issues around satcom industry†
Which regions worldwide provide 5G services on mmWave band? Have they been successful?
The 5G millimeter wave is not being offered to the mass market in any meaningful way with any success anywhere. There are some implementations in three countries – USA, Japan, Singapore, but these are small scale implementations only for location specific applications, such as shopping mall hotspots.
Even in the US, the first country to push for 5G mmWave for the first time, there is independent industry data showing that the overall average time consumers are connected to a 5G mmWave is less than 1% of the time over all three US mobiles. networking.
5G mmWave relies on existing and new construction of massive amounts of fiber infrastructure to connect 5G mmWave cell sites to achieve target download speeds. This is a decisive element for most countries to make 5G mmWave financially viable, as most countries in the world do not have the level of fiber implementation of the US, Japan and Singapore. For this reason, mobile operators and governments worldwide have shifted their focus from 5G mmWave to 5G in the mid-band spectrum.
It is unlikely that 5G mmWave will undergo a transformation in the rest of the world due to the necessary capital investment and the fact that 5G mmWave cannot physically be used to provide coverage to the mass consumer.
Also, Apple – the largest smartphone maker in the world – has dropped 5G mmWave from their new version of iPhone SE, on the basis that 5G mmWave adds hardware costs that must then be passed on to consumers who are unwilling to spend when the reality is that 5G mmWave is not widely available or given that 5G mmWave will never be an economically viable option in most markets.
Is coexistence possible between space broadband players and mobile players in the mmWave band?
Living together is quite possible and the example of Europe, Australia and more than 100 countries proves it. Europe has decided to deploy 5G mmWave in accordance with the globally agreed spectrum band allocation by the ITU, making 26 GHz available for 5G and 28 GHz for broadband in space. This approach strikes a good balance between the fact that 5G mmWave is on the rise and that the 26 GHz offers spectrum for both mobile operators and 5G private networks in the same mmWave band.
This approach also takes advantage of the favorable economy of satellite broadband in 28 GHz, which can cover entire countries with one or a few satellites and provide broadband to everyone, including aviation, maritime and land transport.
What have been the global processes for the auction of spectrum in mm waveband for satellite companies?
Spectrum auctions have been used for decades now. The rationale: the exclusive allocation of a limited resource, at a fair price, where demand exceeds supply. If this economic principle is not present in the relevant spectrum band, the auction will fail (no bids or unsold spectrum).
Spectrum allocation via auction cannot be applied to satellite companies simply because this very simple economic principle does not fit into space infrastructure: the entire global satellite spectrum resources are shared and no satellite operator in the world has exclusive spectrum rights.
Thousands of satellites all share the same spectrum and there are only a few satellite bands compared to the number of mobile bands. Satellites also do not serve just one country, satellites are designed and deployed to serve entire world regions across many country borders, hence the use of satellite spectrum is coordinated globally by the ITU.
This rules out satellite spectrum being owned by a particular company, it is a globally shared resource and therefore auctions are not a widespread practice in space spectrum uses such as satellite communications.
Because of this major difference, since the mobile spectrum is exclusively owned by each mobile operator and the satellite spectrum is shared worldwide, there are no competition concerns between the two.
Do you see an argument for auctioning spectrum in this mmwave band – for satellite companies – in India?
Mobile operators pay for exclusive access to keep others off the market. Space-based communications share the spectrum resource worldwide, and because satellite companies share the same resource, competition in the satellite segment is even more intense.
Governments recognize this and this is why auction pioneers like New Zealand and the rest of the world continue to embrace such a competitive environment in the satellite sector and only use administrative spectrum mechanisms for satellite services.